So guess where I spent a brief amount of time on Monday?
In a snowbank.
A snowbank in a ditch.
Facing the wrong way.

Go me!

It was really shitty out that day. Random whiteout conditions. Many SW Ontario highways and roads closed. I wouldn’t have been out, but I had to go pick up Josh from work. There was a day it was storming too bad for me to go get him last week, so we spent the $65 on the taxi that day, and we couldn’t afford it again. We were crawling along down the road (Bridge Street, about 2 minutes past where it joins Ebycrest, for you locals) at a max speed of 30kph. Everyone had their 4-ways on, and everyone was being good winter drivers and leaving loads of space between each car. There was a down-hill up ahead, so there was a slow chain-reaction brake. The car in front of me fishtailed a bit, and I fishtailed more wildly, and I knew I was losing it. No traction at all. My options were to either steer left (which would have been the best bet, if not for the two oncoming cars, despite no one being in the other lane for the last 10 minutes :P) or to steer right into the snowbank. So snowbank it was! I also got to spin 180 degrees on my way into the snowbank, so I ended up pointing the wrong way.
*scrunch*
I was fine. It was far too slow to cause any real damage, least of all to a belted passenger, and I wasn’t too close to either the car in front or the car behind to involve them at all. ^_^
I grabbed my Blackberry and sent a quick message to Josh’s Blackberry that I was FINE, but I was in a ditch and might be late getting him. I didn’t know if I could get myself out, of if I’d have to call CAA. If I had to call them, it would be at least a 2 hour wait, given the poor weather and amount of accidents in the region that day.
No point in just sitting there, so I tried to open the driver’s side door, which was against the snowbank. A couple kicks into the snow, and I had enough room to wiggle out the crack I could open the door. Opened the trunk to get my trusty shovel (and cat litter, if I needed it) to start to dig out. I motioned to the person behind me, who was still stopped, that they could indeed continue on because I wasn’t about to just pull out into traffic.

I wasn’t so much in the snowbank as pressed up against it. The edges of it had (obviously) been made by the plough a few hours earlier, and so it was all these football to soccer ball sized chunks of ice/snow. They were all under the side car, and in front and behind both driver’s side tires. So I wasn’t going anywhere without moving them first. Both of those tires were also in the shallow ditch that still showed at the edge of the snowbank.
By this time, a guy has pulled his car over and walked up. He helps move some of the iceballs, and then pushed my car backward, and then forward to get me out. Yay! ^_^ By this time, my pants were soaked up to my knees, and my shoes and socks were wet and frozen. Brrr.
He points out the damage to my front bumper (boo!) and I thank him and he goes on his way, and the person next in line on the road kindly lets me in. Actually, the guy who helped me turned his car around back the way he came, and abandoned staying on the highway. He had been going in the same direction as me.

I’m back on my way!
I then noticed that I was very lucky that I had spun out where I did, because not 50 feet up the road the ditch was far too deep for the snowbank, and I would have had a nice 6+ foot drop backwards into a ditch, instead of having a snowbank stop my spin. Eep.
Further up the road, there was another car in the ditch, with no person in it. I assumed they had gone to the nearby house to call CAA. Even further on, there was another car and a cop car in the ditch.

I made it to Josh’s parking lot. Early, even! So I called my dad because I had to call someone and freak out a bit because I had been backwards in a ditch.
On our way home, Bridge Street had been closed, and we had to find an alternate route. Boo-urns, because it was dark and icy and I like to know where I’m driving.

Scrunched up the right driver’s side bumper of my car a bit. Made a foot long crack in my non-metal side bumper, right at the front tire. I keep forgetting to take a photo in the daylight to post here, but I’ll eventually remember before the sun goes down one of these days. ^_^ It probably won’t be worth fixing until the spring, if at all. So now I have a broken car. I wasn’t even done paying for it yet. D’oh. >_< .